I won't be 35 until next spring, but I definitely felt a difference in energy levels in my first pregnancy vs. my fourth. With the first, I had just DH and a small house, and a flexible office job (where they didn't care if I didn't come in until ten); by the time the fourth came around, I had a much bigger house, three other children, many more demands on my time and body. And being almost a decade older made it harder too, I think -- I bounce back from lack of sleep more slowly, etc. I really had to pay more attention to what I ate this time around too, and to how much water I drank. My midwife recommended B-complex vitamins for the energy, and having been anemic in pregnancy before (with the major symptom being extreme tiredness), I took iron tablets too.

I definitely think having your own children still at home is affecting the "gushing." Don't worry about it! Just say, "oh, it's great; baby is cute, doing well; it's so sweet to see my son jump into being a dad. . . " (If they're old friends who knew your son as a boy, they may appreciate that last comment.) You might want to have one or two pictures with you for people who ask. (Oh, and if comments might ever get back to your DIL, talk her up too. Of course you're proud of your son, but relationships between MILs and DILs are complicated, and I know I love when I hear that I've impressed my MIL!) As for going to see the baby, every day seems a bit much! But maybe once a week would be good, especially if you can call and offer to bring a meal or stop at the store or something. That way, your son and DIL know you care, and you and your dgd will get to know each other (and yes, for many people, it's way more fun when they start to interact and show personality), but you're still giving them plenty of space and rest. I personally like a fair amount of quiet and rest when I have a new baby, and even though I truly love and adore both my mom and MIL, I don't like to share my babies or my space very much, so having them here every day would be too much for me! I think you are doing just fine!! (And the spending money thing is silly -- if she's all set with the stuff she needs, it's ridiculous to overwhelm her parents with more stuff, just for the sake of doing so!) (And I do think the relationship is a bit different with your son's children vs. your daughter's. My MIL is a wonderful mom, grandmother, and friend, but our relationship is different from the one she has with her own daughter, or that I have with my own mom. I'm also more likely to take gestures differently from my mom vs. my MIL, which is my fault, really. So probably treading carefully with your DIL is a good move. :) ) But you sound like a wonderful grandma -- I expect you and dgd will have lots of fun together as she gets older!

:grouphug: -- I can't imagine how nerve-wracking this is for you. "Thank you" doesn't seem adequate enough.

Call the library and politely ask if they could check their shelves. Also/alternately, ask them if they could renew it for you. Ours will do that, even if the computer won't let me renew it. I've had library books go missing before -- so very annoying! Our librarian said one time a patron found a missing book under the stove!

Yep. In my house, it's either, "If you are asking, then you are volunteering to help," or an overly cheery, "Oh, good, I'm so glad you are offering to help!" I don't mind doing meals or whatever, but I resent demands to do things -- I'm not a maid!

I used to dislike interstates. And then I moved to Boston as a newlywed. After driving there, anything's a breeze. No, really, I learned that I could sleep a little later if I took the Mass Pike (interstate) to work instead of the slower roads. Then we lived near Philadelphia and DC/Baltimore. Now, I actually prefer interstates and the like to back roads -- I prefer to get on the road and GO, rather than stop-start-stop-start (especially if I'm driving one of our stick shift vehicles). The bigger roads usually have signs that are easier to read, and the lanes are wide, and everything is more open and has better visibility. (Of course, when traffic is heavy, interstates aren't fun.) Except for the PA Turnpike; it leaves something to be desired, IMO, especially closer to Philadelphia -- too narrow and hard to see. ETA: I would work on overcoming your dislike of the interstate. I think it's reasonable to dislike things, but when it gets in the way of something you really want to do (like a good job), that's when I want to overcome it. In your case, I would practice on the interstate during times when the weather is calm, and traffic is light, and practice going just one or two exits at a time (and ones that you know, or that your DH tells you have good exit/entrance ramps), maybe, gradually working up to longer distances. Practice is really what helped me feel more comfortable. (Also, I think it's great that you're concerned about what your kids are seeing -- my mom is not a confident driver and really dislikes fast driving, interstates, etc., and I think that dislike transferred to me when I was first learning to drive and left me lacking confidence.)

Okay, so you ate some things you probably shouldn't have -- but it seems like the end results were clear, and that, IMO, is worth a lot. To see, definitively, how it makes you feel is helpful! So it's research. :) (And they say that a big part of any dietary change is knowing how to get back to it when you go off.) If you're comfortable experimenting in the future, could you try having the hard-boiled eggs and then something like a cookie? Maybe the low-carb pizza didn't have quite enough fat and protein to "cushion" the extra sugar, but something like eggs would? Also, perhaps you might look into some low carb desserts -- maybe that use stevia for sweetener and/or coconut or almond flour? Maybe expensive, but maybe reasonable for occasional use?

This is my experience this time around too, only exactly opposite. You'd think with my third boy in a row, I'd have all the boy clothes I need. Nope. My other two boys were born in February and October, and they were big at birth, so all of my newborn clothes are winter (even the neutral ones from my shower before DD was born; she was born in March), and the smallest summer boy clothes I have are 6-9 months. I have plenty of summer clothes to fit a 9-pound newborn girl, but very little to fit the 8-pound newborn boy that popped out. MIL went shopping right away. :)

God is so good! And I think your son is doing well to recognize and obey God's prompting on his heart to pray for your DH too.

I personally count chapter books that my 9yo reads to herself, whether for fun or for school, chapter books that we read to her or that are on tape/CD/mp3, any picture books or other books that are used as part of our curriculum, regardless of who read them, even if they're below her reading level, reference books like dictionaries or atlases, and any texts or spines that are part of schoolwork. Basically, I count pretty much anything that DD has looked at or that someone has read to her; the only things I really don't include are general picture books that she reads for fun, which aren't related to any particular school topics, and only because that would be way too many books. My book list this past year was several pages long; it's not in need of anything extra.

Regular non-organic (though local and without RBST) 2% milk is a little over $4 a gallon here. Raw milk varies, depending on where I get it. The stuff I like best is about $4.50 a gallon, so it's comparable to grocery store milk, but it means driving an hour each way, so I don't do that often with gas being so expensive. That same farm's milk is sold at a local health food store (that is closer and more convenient to me) for $6.25 a gallon, and there's a place five minutes from me whose raw milk is pretty good (and they're a homeschooling family, so I like supporting them), though not quite as creamy, and it's been steady at $7.40 a gallon for the past several years. Butter -- regular butter is about $3-4 a pound, I think, but I don't usually buy it unless it's on sale ($2 a pound). I usually buy organic butter, which is a little over $5 a pound. Raw butter from the farm with the $4.50 milk is $9 a pound but so good!

I like Cory Edward, and I do think it fits nicely with your other boys' names. Since Cory can be a bit ambiguous as to gender, I like that you chose an obviously masculine middle name. The only thing I would suggest is that if you have two boys, go with another slightly ambiguous name for the other one as well, like Avery or Jamie, rather than an obviously masculine name. I'm thinking that with twins, one very boyish name and one less obvious one is going to be assumed to be a boy and a girl.

Whenever you want! I just kind of work at it all a little at a time -- getting the clothes ready, getting the house ready (enough that I won't mind having company), getting the stuff for the birth ready. . . I remember pulling out the teeny-tiny newborn clothes pretty much right after I found out I was pregnant with baby number two, but I know it wasn't quite that early other times. I do breathe a huge sigh of relief at 24 weeks, because while nothing is ever guaranteed, that's the point at which the baby has a chance, however small, of living if it's born. (And then there's another sigh of relief when I hit 36.5 weeks, which is when homebirthing is okay.) This time around, I didn't do a lot until the third trimester. We had a busy spring, and it was wet and rainy for a long time = no sun for getting spots out of the clothes. So a lot happened in May and June, and then I worked really hard the weekend after July 4th -- sewed a bunch of wipes, got the last few birthing items together, scrubbed the bathtub, stocked the freezer really well, etc. I wasn't due until the 23rd of July and didn't figure I'd actually have the baby until about today, actually, since my first three were all after 40 weeks, so I figured that big burst of nesting energy would net me a couple of relaxing weeks. Hahahaha. Baby was born on July 12. Obviously my unconscious mind knew something I didn't and gave me that push to get the rest of the stuff ready. (And with my other labors, I've had several hours during which I would have been able to tidy up, get stuff together etc., but not this time -- labor was only four hours, and I wasn't even sure it was real labor for the first two. If I hadn't had stuff ready, it wouldn't have been ready when the baby was born!) I think I was slightly in denial this time. Not that I wasn't happy about the baby -- I was, for sure. No, I was concerned about something going wrong; I'd had a pervasive thought that something was not quite right with the baby, so I'm wondering if my mind was trying to protect my heart or something. Like, I didn't gather all my homebirth stuff early because I wasn't sure I'd get the homebirth. (My feelings were wrong, fwiw; I got the homebirth, and the baby is just fine.) Anyway, funny thing: my friend borrowed my infant carseat between my two younger boys, and she brought it back in April. We bought the van Memorial Day weekend, and I put the infant seat in it just to see how it would fit (I remember installing the seat at around 36 or 37 weeks with my other babies). It ended up just sitting in the van, and when we went to take the baby and the big kids out for our first outing as a family of six when DS3 was five days old, I realized that I'd never adjusted the straps back to newborn height. Oy. So much for having done it early, LOL. Have fun nesting and getting ready for your new little one!

My hypothetical future baby Katherine Joy (Snow White, great minds think alike!) is "Baby Kate" in my head, though I would endeavor to call her Katherine. (My first son is Andrew, and while we don't mind Andy, we prefer Andrew, so we've always called him that, and nobody calls him Andy. He prefers Andrew himself. So it is possible to avoid nicknames if you're firm.) But for someone else's Katherine, I'd call her whatever she wanted to be called, or whatever her parent(s) introduced her as.

My kids have all been different. My oldest could identify several letters well before her second birthday -- I remember walking into WalMart one day, and she was going, "Look, there's 'L' for my name, and 'M' for Mommy." I think she could count at least a couple of items around then too. She was speaking in completely full and correct sentences well before her second birthday and reading chapter books before her fifth birthday. She knew all of her states and half of their capitals at 2 1/2 (she was really interested in them then, but I think she did forget a lot of them in the past few years). My second child could count a couple of things before his second birthday but wasn't really interested in letters or reading for a while (he's 6.5 and really just now ready to read, but I see signs that his brain is more wired for math-type stuff). My third child signed a ton (DD did a bit, DS1 not much) but is only starting to count a little bit now and has no concept of letters (he's 2y9m); he also didn't talk much for a long time, and while he does speak in sentences now, they aren't always grammatically correct (lots of stuff like "me do it," whereas by this stage, DD was well beyond that). Otoh, his fine motor skills developed very early; I remember being amazed at his pincer grasp when he was really young. So I think kids can be all over the place with skills. (And fwiw, none of mine have been able to recite the ABCs at 18 months, even the one who could recognize letters.)

Wonderful news! Hurray!!!!

I use black pen (because I only use black pen, ever; I am really picky about what pens I like), and I just circle whatever needs more attention, whether it's an incorrect math problem, or copywork that needs to be redone. I don't mark correct stuff at all; the assumption is that it's correct unless it's marked otherwise. Maybe when they're older and writing essays, I'll use red pen to stand out. Side note: my favorite history teacher in high school used to use red pen, but he'd only write a number next to the item. We all had to bring in a tape so that he could record his comments on it. Each number corresponded to a comment on the tape. Obviously this took longer (and we couldn't listen to the comments until we got home from school), but maybe it was faster for him than writing lengthy comments. Also, it neutralized the red pen a bit -- you might have several numbers and comments, but they might be positive just as easily as negative. (He might have corrected small spelling errors right on the paper; I don't remember.)

Around here, there is a Community Action Program. WIC falls under its umbrella, and so does the food pantry. If you call the WIC office and tell them you're interested in applying, you could also ask them if they know of food pantries in the area.

Isn't hydrogen peroxide supposed to help? Don't quote me on that, though, but I thought I remembered my mom using a mixture of that and rubbing alcohol when I had water in my ear after swimming. Google it first though! Garlic oil drops may help. Fwiw, during my third pregnancy, I developed an ear infection on one side, and I couldn't get it to clear up, so I finally went to the doctor (which I rarely do, but I didn't want to let an ear infection go too long during pregnancy). He gave me amoxicillin, which is mild and very safe for pregnancy. It didn't take too long for the infection to clear up, and the fluid started draining shortly -- much better! (And the baby was fine -- he's an extremely healthy almost 3yo now.) So if you do need antibiotics, rest assured that there are safe options.

My kids have unlimited access to water and drink it throughout the day, as much as they want. They've always drunk water, so they are used to it. We drink milk, generally raw, with meals; occasionally they'll have water with a meal (especially dinner), or a cup of milk between meals. Juice or lemonade are treats, and we generally don't have them in the house.

-Have a system -- bins, boxes, files, whatever you need -- and make it work for you. Tweak it until it does. If it's not easy to use, you won't use it well. -Sort the mail the second it comes in the door. Recycle/throw away (our town doesn't recycle paper!) anything you don't need. I don't keep catalogs very often either, and I go paperless when possible for bills and such too. -Do a little every day, or at least frequently. Update my Quicken program at least every week, clean up the toys every day, etc. -Get good at doing stuff in 5 or 10 minute increments. -I think it's FlyLady that says something like, "if a job will only take 30 seconds, do it now." I like that. -Stay off the computer!

My short-term memory is not always so great; I suspect that is partly an ADD sort of thing. (I've never been formally diagnosed, and I'm not hyperactive, but I am pretty sure I would qualify for ADD.) I can walk upstairs to get something and forget what it is I wanted. I am organized, but I also have a lot of stuff crowding my mind/house/day/etc., so I lose stuff if it's not perfectly organized. Kind of absent-minded professor sort of stuff -- I'll brush my hair but will put the brush down somewhere instead of in the proper spot, and then I won't be able to find it later, or I'll toss my keys into a random pocket in my bag instead of the same one every time, and then I'll have to hunt for them. I do thrive on specific bins and labels and dividers and files and boxes and whatnot though. However, my long-term memory is quite good. Excellent, even, I would say. It's not quite photographic, but I do recall specific details about days from the past very, very well. My MIL has called me up multiple times to ask, "Do you remember when we went to X? When was that?" And I can almost always recall. Or I'll pull all sorts of random trivia that I've read once, or names of people from the past, or stuff like that out of my head. It worries me a little bit, because I tend to rely on that memory instead of journaling, and someday I am afraid my memory will start to fail.

:grouphug: Good grief, you are seriously being tested these days! So frustrating!

That's about what I tend to do -- then it covers pets, food, etc. I do think it's generally the guest's responsibility to check, though. I'd expect a guest (or the guest's parent) to mention food allergies, and the same with pet or other allergies. If something matters to you (whether it's allergies, cigarette smoke, aggressive dogs, guns in the home, etc.), I think it's your responsibility (and your right) to ask.

I'm so sorry for their loss! You're a good friend to be reaching out to them. I agree with a PP -- send a note that acknowledges their loss and lets them know you're thinking of them. And down the road, notes around Mother's Day, Father's Day, the child's birthday, stuff like that. Light a candle (and let them know you did) on October 15. If you talk to them, be willing to listen and let them vent, cry, talk about their daughter, anything. Whatever it takes to acknowledge that their daughter is a real part of their life -- many people will want to tiptoe around it, figuring a mention of the baby will hurt them. They're already hurting; she is a real child and has left a hole in their family -- they're not going to forget her, and it will probably help them if other people mention the baby. One of my nieces was stillborn at 36 weeks, and from what my SIL has said, she appreciates when other people mention her baby and acknowledge that she is a real part of their life.